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Not another Bank Holiday?

 

Bank Holiday's come thick and fast at this time of year, which - if you're stuck in an office job or a schoolkid - you think is wonderful.  Short working weeks and time to kick back and enjoy yourself.  We've sunshine and showers over this long weekend.  The rain's arrived at last, giving the plants a desperately needed drink.  
The rainfall hasn't been heavy, so no chance of the water butts being refilled, but I'm still a happy gardener.  Everything's fresher after a shower of rain.  Greener and perked up.
I love how the water's pooled on these Valerian leaves.  
The foxgloves are in a range of colours from white to cream, pale pink and a more vivid shade.  The bees love these, and it's so much fun to watch them feeding, buzzing from one bloom to the next.  Crawling inside the tubular flowers, sometimes having to squeeze in if they're a particularly chubby bee.  
There are a few purple aliums dotted around, threaded between daisies and strawberry plants and yet more Valerian.  
This is another bee favourite, the sage.  It's put on a burst of growth recently with these purple flowers that match the shade of the aliums.  
Foxgloves everywhere.  I'll have to take photos of them on the allotment as I've got 'em by the dozen on my plot.  A contrast to other plots with their practical, neat rows of vegetables!  I'll never make a traditional allotmenteer, will I?
At home, I'm carrying on with this blast of colour and pattern.  I've done most of the crazy patchwork style base, and it's pretty much all embellishment from now on.  After that I'll add a backing fabric, and figure out what I'm going to do with the whole thing.  The original idea was to turn it into a book cover, which I might still do. 
I've treated myself to this nifty mini laminator, and have been enjoying experimenting with what I can squish between A6 sized sheets of plastic.  Small feathers worked reasonably well, as did leaves.  
I'd also bought a couple of packs of Sissix beads and sequins in a Hobbycraft sale a while ago.  The packs came in tubes with four or five pots of beads and sequins per tube.  Only some of the pots, on closer inspection, turned out to contain teeny tiny gold stars and apricot coloured circles without holes pierced in them.  More decorative than useful.  I'd been wondering what to do with them.  (I know some people put them in envelopes so when you open a birthday card, for example, lots of them fall out.  Which always looks pretty, but then they're everywhere.  All over your desk or the floor or annoyingly over your keyboard, getting stuck between the keys... Yes, I'm grumbling ... I'll stop now.)  Anyway, I realised I could sandwich a scattering of these stars and circles in between laminating sheets.  I'm now looking around to see what else I can laminate!  I've Calendula flowers growing on the allotment.  Those bright orange petals could look nice.  

Okay, I'm going to play with my new toy.  I hope you enjoy your day and do something creative too.  I welcome comments, so maybe let me know what you're making or doing?   Bye for now.

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